RAWA uses education as a tool to
fight for democracy, freedom, human rights and peace. UMBC professor
Anne Brodsky has worked with the organization for over three years.

Previous Profiles:

Telling the Story of Afghan
Women

In the two years
since the horrific attacks of September 11 and the ensuing American
invasion of Afghanistan, the world’s attention has shifted away from
the plight of the Afghan people, who have been ravaged by decades of
war. But even before 9-11, Anne Brodsky, an associate professor
of psychology and affiliate
professor of women's studies
at UMBC, was already risking her life to tell the story of Afghan
women under the oppression of the Taliban and other fundamentalist
Islamic factions and she continues that fight today.

RAWA is a
humanitarian and political women’s organization that has operated
clandestinely in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the past 26 years.
Brodsky has been working with the group for over three years to help
raise awareness of the plight of women who still risk their lives when
they stand up for basic freedoms like going to school, having a job,
wearing modern clothes, and being able to leave the house unescorted
by a male.

As part of
these efforts, Brodsky has traveled to underground girls’ schools,
orphanages and refugee camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She has
risked her life – both from the dangers facing a Western woman in
areas controlled by fundamentalist groups, and from the ongoing
fighting and unexploded landmines and ordnance that litter the
countryside.

Even worse is
the apparent resurgence of the Taliban, who have launched several
recent attacks on Afghan border police and girls’ schools from just
across the Pakistan border, a development that doesn’t surprise
Brodsky.

“While
schools for girls have reopened, only about 32 percent of the students
who returned were girls,” she says. “Girls’ schools have been fire
bombed and threatened; and forced marriages, imprisonment of girls and
women for attempting to escape abusive marriages, forced medical
chastity tests and other extreme forms of oppression are ongoing, thus
RAWA’s activities and message are still urgently needed.”

Publisher's Weekly
described With All Our Strength as "Groundbreaking...The first
writer with in-depth access to RAWA, Brodsky writes a passionate
narrative...[S]tands out as a lone and important study of a remarkable
organization." Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban, calls it
"A powerful story."

Brodsky will
never forget her five months in the field with the brave women of RAWA.
“I gained a much deeper understanding and appreciation for their
struggle, and was able to record the in-depth stories of real people’s
lives under so many years of oppression, war and trauma,” she says.
“But more than being victims, RAWA has empowered women, children and
men to use education as a tool to fight for democracy, freedom, human
rights and peace.”

According to
Brodsky, the fight for democracy and human rights in Afghanistan is
far from over. “RAWA remains a threatened group for their outspoken
opposition to the oppression of women and all democratically minded
people that continue under the current, warlord dominated government,”
she says. “They fervently hope that the rest of the world will
continue to support them and will not, once again, turn their backs on
the long suffering people of Afghanistan.”

Brodsky’s
work on behalf of women at UMBC and beyond was recognized with the
2003 award from the President’s Commission for Women, one of several
presented at UMBC’s
37th Anniversary
Opening.

UMBC
9/11 Commemorative Events

Join faculty, staff and students for a day of
inter-cultural drumming for global understanding and peace from 11
a.m. to 4 p.m. on Main Street, The Commons. Performers include the
Global Percussion Trio, founded by Barry Dove, UMBC music faculty;
Stream Ohrstrom, drummer and peace-builder; Linda Joy Burke, Baltimore
poet and performance artist; Sankofa Dance Theater, acclaimed
Baltimore organization featuring dance, music and folklore. The UMBC
Study Abroad Fair will be held from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. on the
Commons Terrace.

Expression Boards will be placed on Main Street in The
Commons beginning Wednesday, September 10 and will remain up through
Friday, September 12.

For more information call UMBC's Student Life office at
(410) 455-3462.